Drug repurposing is evolving rapidly, driven by data, collaboration, and innovative digital ecosystems. 
To deepen your understanding and explore the full scope of insights presented in this work, we invite you to read the complete publication here https://www.nature.com/articles/s41573-025-01164-x 

At a time when scientific innovation is advancing at unprecedented speed, drug repurposing is emerging as one of the most promising strategies to accelerate the arrival of new therapies to patients. The concept is simple: take existing molecules, already known, already studied, often already approved, and imagine them in a completely different therapeutic context. The result? Potential new indications with shorter timelines and lower costs than traditional drug development. 

Yet behind this apparent simplicity lies a complex landscape. In recent years, hundreds of computational resources—databases, predictive algorithms, omics platforms, AI-driven tools—have been created to support researchers in the repurposing process. An extraordinary wealth of tools, but also a crucial challenge: how can we choose the right resource for each project? 

A recent scientific work “Computational drug repurposing: approaches, evaluation of silico resources and case studies” published on Nature, offers a structured answer. The authors conducted a comprehensive mapping of the available in silico tools, organizing them through a newly developed ontology dedicated to drug repurposing—a kind of “digital compass” designed to guide drug developers across hierarchical categories, functions, and application areas. 

The value of the study goes well beyond theory. The researchers included expert evaluations of selected platforms and presented three concrete case studies developed within the Horizon Europe REMEDi4ALL project which will leverage the power of Exscalate, Dompé farmaceutici’s artificial-intelligence and supercomputing–based drug-design platform, to accelerate the identification of new indications for known compounds. These examples demonstrate how different resources can be combined to move from data to therapeutic hypotheses, and from hypotheses to experimental validation. 

The result is a thoughtful guide designed for researchers, clinicians, and industry professionals seeking to navigate the digital repurposing landscape more effectively. A guide that not only clarifies the present but also lays the foundations for a future international, sustainable, and expandable web catalogue dedicated to drug repurposing.